Births, Deaths and Marriages
by Mucus Membrane
Summary: The Eighth Doctor once said he was "half-human on his mother's side." This story, featuring the 11th Doctor and Amy, is based on an idea about how that could have happened.


BIRTHS, DEATHS AND MARRIAGES:

A 'DOCTOR WHO' STORY

Amy Pond sat in a small cafe not far from Piccadilly Circus, contentedly sipping a cappuccino.

Although she looked relaxed at the moment, her life had been turned upside down. As a child, she once met a strange man calling himself the Doctor, who claimed to be an extraterrestrial with the ability to travel through time in a craft disguised as an old police box. After years of therapy she had convinced herself that the whole thing never happened and that the "Raggedy Doctor" was an illusion, a particularly realistic imaginary friend.

But then, twelve years later, the same man turned up again – the Doctor, exactly as she remembered him (or rather, as she had tried to forget him). And this time some other, not-so-friendly aliens had turned up as well, leaving her in no doubt of the truth of his claims.

Amy and her fiancé Rory Williams had ended up accompanying the Doctor on several trips in the TARDIS (his miraculously disguised space-time vehicle). Despite the occasional dangers such as the horrible Vampires of Venice, Amy found that she was enjoying travelling with the Doctor tremendously, and feeling more alive than she ever had before – although sometimes, perhaps due to the effects of time travel, she noticed strange lapses in her memory, and seemed unable to recall whole passages of her childhood….

Amy's reverie was interrupted when a young waiter, who had been checking out her legs, tripped and fell headlong, spilling somebody's order of fish and chips all over the place. Amy tried to hide her amusement as another waiter helped him to get to his feet and brush himself down.

Her thoughts returned to that morning. Rory had stayed in his room, pleading a headache. After breakfast (the TARDIS had a wonderful machine that could synthesize almost any food you wanted, though Amy still felt it didn't get hard-boiled eggs quite right) she went to the TARDIS control room and found the Doctor looking unusually pensive and serious.

The Doctor told her that they were in the neighborhood of London in the 21st century, and he wanted to visit Somerset House, where the British Government kept all its birth, death and marriage records. He said he "just wanted to check some birth dates", so Amy agreed to come into the city with him, and he would meet her at this café when he was finished.

Amy was on her third cappuccino, and the shadows were starting to lengthen outside, when the Doctor reappeared.

But she almost didn't recognize him. The man – the alien, whatever – who was usually so full of manic energy, had a ghastly, stricken expression on his face.

Looking at that face, Amy could now believe his statement that, despite appearing to be in his twenties, he was actually more than 900 earth years old.

"What is it?" she asked as he almost collapsed into the seat opposite her.

For a long time the Doctor just sat in silence, staring into space, not even looking at the coffee Amy ordered for him. But eventually he started to talk.

"You never met the Master, did you? No… you're lucky, believe me. He was a Time Lord like me, but he was insane – a psychopath. He stole a TARDIS like I did, and started roaming around the Galaxy, but never to do good – always to obtain power and wealth. He was utterly ruthless and self-centred – when my people go bad, we really go bad!" The Doctor chuckled mirthlessly, and took an absent-minded mouthful of coffee. "The thing is, a few years ago, the Master came to Earth – in fact he came to this country, England." The Doctor looked straight at Amy with his unnervingly intense gaze. "He actually became Prime Minister for a while, using the name of Harold Saxon."

Amy made a sound of sheer disbelief. "Harold Saxon? He was an alien? That's incredible! I think I voted for him - mostly because he was good-looking."

The Doctor merely nodded. "He hypnotized large numbers of people using a device called the Archangel Network – hypnotized them into voting for him. No doubt that affected you. "

"What happened to Harold Saxon?" Amy asked. "The official story was that he was removed in a party-room coup, then had a nervous breakdown and retired to a farm somewhere."

"The Master is dead," the Doctor said flatly. "I …. Some of my friends and I were involved in his downfall. And – well, it's a long story, but he's either dead or somewhere where he can't do any more harm." The Doctor sighed. "But the thing is- while he was living on Earth as Harold Saxon, the Master got married."

"Oh, I remember!" said Amy. "Lucy Saxon. Didn't like her. Seemed like a stuck-up bitch. Was she an alien too?"

"No, she was human. Poor girl, she was completely under the Master's control –right until the end, that is. In fact, she shot him. He refused to regenerate, preferring to die rather than admit defeat. And that was the end of Harold Saxon."

"Oh my goodness!" said Amy. "She shot him? She deserves a medal, then. Deserves the Order of the Bath. What happened to her?"

The Doctor looked at Amy, and the horrible, tragic expression was coming back to his face. "I'm afraid Lucy was rather hard done by. UNIT was responsible for hushing the whole incident up - wouldn't do for it to become known that an interplanetary criminal had become PM – "

"Only human criminals!" Amy interjected.

" – and, as part of the cover-up, poor Lucy was sent to jail. She died in a women's prison just last year."

"Oh, that's terrible," said Amy.

The Doctor suddenly gulped at his coffee, looking unusually nervous. "But before she died, she gave birth to a child."

"What!" Amy said loudly, causing some heads to turn at nearby tables.

"Yes – I know. It shouldn't have happened – different species and all that. Totally different DNA. But somehow, by some miracle, she did have the Master's child: a boy. And I know what happened to that child."

Amy just looked at the Doctor, and he continued with obvious reluctance. "I've been comparing some records I found in Somerset House with information I already had in the TARDIS. I believe the Time Lords removed the child and took him back to Gallifrey – his father's planet. They would have wiped Lucy's memory so that she either didn't remember having a child at all, or believed she had given him up for adoption in the usual manner. But the Time Lords always did take a dim view of their people marrying other species. The child was taken back to the home world to be brought up as a Time Lord."

"Wow!" said Amy. "So, is he still back there?"

"No," said the Doctor. "You have to understand – the Time Lords travel in time, as well as space. The child was taken back to Gallifrey at a point in time some 900 Earth years ago, when the Time Lords were aware of the Master and concentrating all their efforts on repairing the damage he did."

"Oh," said Amy. There was another awkward pause. "So…. What happened to the kid, then?"

The Doctor smiled wryly. "Why do you think I like Earth so much? Why do you think I keep coming back here?" He sighed. "I was brought up in – well, what you would call an orphanage – back on Gallifrey. I always knew that I was half human on my mother's side, but I didn't know who my parents were…" He looked at Amy. "Until now."

Amy's jaw dropped open. "You mean…."

"Yes. The Master was my father, and Lucy Saxon was my mother. Today I finally saw my own birth certificate." The Doctor laughed bitterly, but Amy thought she could see a hint of a tear in his eye. She reached across the table and took his hand.

The Doctor and Amy sat silently together as the shadows lengthened over London.


End file.
